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Page Street. Westminster. London. UK. April 12, 2020.Samir, who drives the number 88 bus.."Its quiet, but there are certainly some passengers you think dont need to be travelling. It should be only for workers and elderly people"..General Intro Text:.There were 2.2 billion journeys on London's buses in the year to March 2019, far more than the 1.37 billion in the same period on the London Underground. Although service frequencies have been substantially cut during the pandemic, London's bus network still reaches further than other modes of public transport into the peripheral estates that house many critical workers. ..Yet drivers faced management's reluctance to make changes in dealing with the dangers posed to drivers by the virus. Up until late April, passengers were still boarding via the front doors, and tapping their Oyster cards ( transport payment cards) on electronic readers close to the driver...Some drivers started unilaterally blocking off the front few seats by their cabs and telling passengers to enter by the exit doors in the middle of the vehicle. In response, a manager at Arriva – one of the private companies that owns and operates the buses on contract to Transport for London (TfL) – warned drivers they could face disciplinary action over such steps, although the company later apologised...From April 20, TfL told bus operators to close front doors, block off seats nearest the driver and exempt passengers from touching.in. Claire Mann, TfL's director of bus operations, says driver safety is the group's “absolute priority”, and it has brought in enhanced cleaning procedures and improved protection for drivers' cabs..But the late introduction of those measures seem all but certain to have cost lives..By April 27, 28 of London's 31,000 bus operating staff were reported to have died after testing positive for Covid-19 – about 16 times the rate of the NHS, where 82 of 1.5 million staff have died.. (KEYSTONE/VII Photo/Seamus Murphy)